MY PERSONAL JOURNEY WITH COACHING

After pursuing a career as a singer in London in my early twenties, I found another, unexpected opportunity. I was very much out on my own in a foreign country and I was happy to grab it. That’s how I had started working for a small luxury shoe designer in London. And guess what, I found myself really enjoying it. 

I started small: I was a Saturday girl working in the shop. It was great; I would sing in the evening and work in the daytime. I had little expectations when it came to any kind of career. After all, I was a college dropout. 

To everyone’s surprise, especially mine, within a few years, I was the general manager for the UK and a few smaller territories. And not long after, I was put in charge of the company’s global communications. 

The business had boomed, and my trajectory went nearly as stratospheric as the brand’s. 

The only downside was that I had never ‘chosen’ this career. I don’t believe that I ever sat myself down and asked: what do I want out of this precious life?

Like billions of others before me, I let myself be carried by life, without any kind of clear intention. 

Did I want to be a good person? Yes. Was I particularly motivated by money? No, but I liked the perks, especially as I was finding my footing in the luxury industry. My tastes got more expensive by the day. 

Some days were better than others, along with the career and the workload. My work life became the shining beacon of my life. Nothing else seemed to matter as much. I had lots of good friends in my industry and most found themselves in the same position. Our identities were merging with our roles. 

It was hard doing much else, I was too exhausted to even get out of my bed on the weekend. So I had an enviable salary, and job (and perks), great friendships, a disastrous love life, and then my family started to fall apart. Loss, and then another loss. And then my mother passed away. 

It is when faced with the compounding effects of a very busy career, the acceleration of our communication, the globalisation of the luxury fashion industry, and the multiple deaths in my family, that things started to come apart at the seams. 

Then there was a diagnosis of an autoimmune disease, and the cracks started to appear, at work of all places. 

Between the exhaustion, feeling miserable at work, and my body in pain, I finally started to pay attention. 

And yes. I met a coach, in the craziest most unlikely synchronicity you can imagine (a story for another time). That gifted man helped me grieve the loss of my mother and introduced me to this lesser known art form that is coaching. 

Fast forward a few chapters, I explored various modalities, which combined, helped me dig deep to find my own inner motivation, or let’s say personal mission. I found myself meditating daily. I continued with practising yoga, I journaled fervently - and still write longform daily following Julia Cameron’s morning pages - went on daily morning walks, tried my way around pranayama (yogic breathing exercises). And somehow, I found myself enrolled into a lot of online coaching programs, from Tony Robbins to the altMBA (which may not sound like a coaching program but it is, more on that in another post). 

Things were moving in the right direction, I say that because I felt better, more aligned with myself. Calmer, more centred, patient, kinder. My friends noticed. They asked what I was doing. I said I’m meditating. While that was true, Loving Kindness and mindfulness meditation have been a game changer for me, but in parallel, I was dedicating countless hours of my spare time looking after my energy and starting to envision something different for my life.

A NEW OUTLOOK

All this work stemmed from the realisation that it was about time I figured out what I wanted to see in my life and career, other than hitting KPI’s (not a word I ever used, but you get my gist). 

Never in a million years did I think I’d become a coach myself. 

My digging surfaced a desire to study yoga and mindfulness, to become a certified teacher. I assumed that my studies would remain on the fringe of my life. 

As far as work goes, I stayed in the lane I was in, though I eventually quit my fancy (and incredibly well paid) job, to become a freelance consultant. 

In doing that, I just transposed what I was going for from a big company to smaller companies.

After a couple of years, I noticed that my clients often paid me handsomely for strategic recommendations only not to follow them. And then not hitting their objectives. 

This felt wrong, and it didn’t sit right with me. I wondered what I could do to help them avoid making mistakes that cost them dearly, at all levels. 

I’d reached the limit of the advisory-consulting model. 

Us humans we don’t like to lean on advice. 

We don’t recognise advice as relevant to us in the large majority of cases. Depending on what’s going on in our heads, we don’t even hear the advice in the first place. 

But when we are asked open questions, when we are invited to lean into self-reflection, inner-inquiry, we start finding answers for ourselves. These answers are a much stronger foundation to support change. 

It took me trying out a facilitator training with coach and author Tara Mohr to fall in love with coaching, as a methodology. I’m talking head over heels in love. 

That’s what happens when you meet someone so good, so impactful and benevolent. It changes your whole worldview as to what is possible when we get a supportive thinking partner. 

Shortly after, I signed up to become certified and I chose to do that with the one and only Martha Beck. If you’ve never heard of her, well, Google her. How I found Martha and why I chose her is a long and funny story and the synchronicity is quite magical, just like it was when I met my first coach. 

Intuition is important when it comes to finding the right person to steer you forward.

Today, aside from offering one-on-one coaching, I consult for businesses in the luxury fashion and design space, leaning towards those who want to make a positive difference in the world. And I am developing my methodology, leaning on coaching tools, open questions, values, and mindful group reflection to lead my clients through change.